TO HIS MISTRESS.

(Translation of Thomas Moore.)

"Never shall woman's smile have power
To win me from those gentle charms!"
Thus swore I in that happy hour

When Love first gave them to my arms.

And still alone thou charm'st my sight-
Still, though our city proudly shine
With forms and faces fair and bright,
I see none fair or bright but thine.

Would thou wert fair for only me,
And couldst no heart but mine allure!

To all men else unpleasing be,

So shall I feel my prize secure.

Oh, love like mine ne'er wants the zest
Of others' envy, others' praise;

But in its silence safely blest,

Broods o'er a bliss it ne'er betrays.

Charm of my life! by whose sweet power
All cares are hushed, all ills subdued-
My light in ev'n the darkest hour,

My crowd in deepest solitude!

No; not though heaven itself sent down
Some maid of more than heavenly charms,
With bliss undreamt thy bard to crown,
Would I for her forsake those arms.

LOVE DEAF TO DOUBT.

(Translation of James Grainger.)

Fame says, my mistress loves another swain;

Would I were deaf, when Fame repeats the wrong!

All crimes to her imputed give me pain,

Not change my love: Fame, stop your saucy tongue!

ELEGIES OF PROPERTIUS.

[SEXTUS PROPERTIUS, the foremost of Roman elegiac poets, was a wealthy country gentleman, born at Assisium (Assisi), in Umbria, — the birthplace of St. Francis, —about B.C. 50. Like Tibullus he was early orphaned, and his property confiscated after Philippi; but his mother secured him an education, took him to Rome, and tried to make a lawyer of him. He preferred letters, however, and his first book of poems gained him admission to Mæcenas' circle. Little is known of his later history, though he probably had a family, and certainly lived till after B.C. 16. He was a thin, sickly man, very careful in dress, morbidly sensitive and impressionable, and much given to melancholy. His poems are very difficult in matter and language, but of high rank in originality, strength, and imaginative power.]

To MECENAS.

(Translated by Thomas Gray, - first published in Edmund Gosse's edition.)

You ask why thus my loves I still rehearse,
Whence the soft strain and ever melting verse?
From Cynthia all that in my numbers shines;
She is my genius, she inspires the lines;

No Phoebus else, no other Muse I know,

She tunes my easy rhyme, and gives the lay to flow.
If the loose curls around her forehead play,

Or, lawless, o'er their ivory margin stray:

If the thin Coan web her shape reveal,

And half disclose those limbs it should conceal;

Of those loose curls, that ivory front I write;
Of the dear web whole volumes I indite:

Or if to music she the lyre awake,

That the soft subject of my song I make,

And sing with what a careless grace she flings
Her artful hand across the sounding strings.
If sinking into sleep she seems to close
Her languid lids, I favor her repose
With lulling notes, and thousand beauties see
That slumber brings to aid my poetry.
When, less averse, and yielding to desires,
She half accepts and half rejects my fires,
While to retain the envious lawn she tries,
And struggles to elude my longing eyes,
The fruitful muse from that auspicious night
Dates the long Iliad of the amorous fight.
In brief, whate'er she do, or say, or loo,
'Tis ample matter for a lover's book;

And many a copious narrative you'll see
Big with the important Nothing's history.

Yet would the tyrant Love permit me raise
My feeble voice, to sound the victor's praise,
To paint the hero's toil, the ranks of war,
The laureled triumph and the sculptured car;
No giant race, no tumult of the skies,
No mountain structures in my verse should rise,
Nor tale of Thebes nor Ilium there should be,
Nor how the Persian trod the indignant sea;
Not Marius' Cimbrian wreaths would I relate,
Nor lofty Carthage struggling with her fate.
Here should Augustus great in arms appear,
And thou, Mæcenas, be my second care;
Here Mutina from flames and famine free,
And there the ensanguined wave of Sicily,
And sceptered Alexandria's captive shore,
And sad Philippi, red with Roman gore:
Then, while the vaulted skies loud Ios rend,
In golden chains should loaded monarchs bend,
And hoary Nile with pensive aspect seem
To mourn the glories of his sevenfold stream,
While prows, that late in fierce encounter met,
Move through the sacred way and vainly threat.
Thee, too, the Muse should consecrate to fame,
And with her garlands weave thy ever-faithful name.

But nor Callimachus' enervate strain

May tell of Jove, and Phlegra's blasted plain;

Nor I with unaccustomed vigor trace

Back to its source divine the Julian race.

Sailors to tell of winds and seas delight,

The shepherd of his flocks, the soldier of the fight,

A milder warfare I in verse display;

Each in his proper art should waste the day:
Nor thou my gentle calling disapprove,-

To die is glorious in the bed of love.

Happy the youth, and not unknown to fame,
Whose heart has never felt a second flame.
Oh, might that envied happiness be mine!
To Cynthia all my wishes I confine;
Or if, alas! it be my fate to try
Another love, the quicker let me die:
But she, the mistress of my faithful breast,
Has oft the charms of constancy confest,

Condemns her fickle sex's fond mistake,
And hates the tale of Troy for Helen's sake.
Me from myself the soft enchantress stole;
Ah! let her ever my desires control,

Or if I fall the victim of her scorn,

From her loved door may my pale corse be born.
The power of herbs can other harms remove,
And find a cure for every ill but love.

The Melian's hurt Machaon could repair,
Heal the slow chief, and send again to war;
To Chiron Phoenix owed his long-lost sight,
And Phoebus' son recalled Androgeon to the Light.
Here arts are vain, e'en magic here must fail,
The powerful mixture and the midnight spell;
The hand that can my captive heart release,
And to this bosom give its wonted peace,
May the long thirst of Tantalus allay,
Or drive the infernal vulture from his prey.
For ills unseen what remedy is found?
Or who can probe the undiscovered wound?
The bed avails not, nor the leech's care,
Nor changing skies can hurt, nor sultry air.
"Tis hard th' elusive symptoms to explore:
To-day the lover walks, to-morrow is no more;
A train of mourning friends attend his pall,
And wonder at the sudden funeral.

When then my Fates that breath they gave shall claim, And the short marble but preserve a name,

A little verse my all that shall remain;

Thy passing courser's slackened speed restrain;

(Thou envied honor of thy poet's days,

Of all our youth the ambition and the praise!)

Then to my quiet urn awhile draw near;

And say, while o'er the place you drop the tear,

Love and the fair were of his life the pride;

He lived, while she was kind; and when she frowned, he died.

THE EFFIGY OF LOVE.

(Translation of Sir Charles Elton.)

Had he not hands of rare device, whoe'er

First painted Love in figure of a boy?

He saw what thoughtless beings lovers were,

Who blessings lose, whilst lightest cares employ.

Nor added he those airy wings in vain,

And bade through human hearts the godhead fly; For we are tost upon a wavering main;

Our gale, inconstant, veers around the sky.

Nor, without cause, he grasps those barbed darts
The Cretan quiver o'er his shoulder cast;
Ere we suspect a foe, he strikes our hearts;
And those inflicted wounds forever last.

In me are fixed those arrows, in my breast;
But sure his wings are shorn, the boy remains;
For never takes he flight, nor knows he rest;
Still, still I feel him warring through my veins.

In these scorched vitals dost thou joy to dwell?
Oh shame! to others let thy arrows flee;
Let veins untouched with all thy venom swell;
Not me thou torturest, but the shade of me.

Destroy me who shall then describe the fair? This my light Muse to thee high glory brings: When the nymph's tapering fingers, flowing hair, And eyes of jet, and gliding feet she sings.

PREDICTION OF POETIC IMMORTALITY.

(Translation of Sir Charles Elton.)

Sprite of Callimachus! and thou blest shade,
Coan Philetas! I your grove would tread:
Me, Love's vowed priest, have Grecia's choirs obeyed,
From their pure fount in Latian's orgies led.

Say, Spirits! what inspiring grotto gave
Alike to both that subtly tender strain?
Which foot auspicious entered first the cave,
Or from what spring ye drank your flowing vein?

Who lists, may din with arms Apollo's ear:

Smooth let the numbers glide, whose fame on high Lifts me from earth: behold my Muse appear! And on wreathed coursers pass in triumph by!

With me the little Loves the car ascend;

My chariot-wheels a throng of bards pursues;